Looming fiscal disaster is a self-inflicted crisis

“Clearly, this town has been governing by crisis after crisis,” one of Washington’s ultimate insiders told the press this week. And he didn’t say it approvingly.

Leon Panetta, former congressman, former White House chief of staff, former Secretary of Defense, former CIA director, thinks something is wrong with how the politicians are behaving in the nation’s capital.

Odd, isn’t it, how a time away from the center of power can let a little common sense get into your head?

This inability of the Republicans and the Democrats to cooperate is going to push America into decline, Mr. Panetta told The Wall Street Journal.

The federal government shutdown continues as House Speaker John Boehner failed to get enough votes from his own Republican Party to up the ante on the Democrat-controlled Senate. Both sides have been trying to force the other side into voting for their own continuing resolution on the budget and a deal on raising the debt ceiling.

The continuing resolution is to open to the federal government again. The debt ceiling increase is to allow the Treasury Department to borrow enough money to keep paying the nation’s bills. If no agreement is reached on either issue, the effect of the shutdown and the possibility of a government default will start impacting everyone in the nation. The game is called chicken.

“This isn’t the result of a crisis,” Mr. Panetta said. “It’s not the result of a war. It’s the result of something tragic that happened in this country. It’s not the result of natural disaster. This is all self-inflicted.”